Stuttering Workaround (and iMovie observations)

Question

I too had experienced stuttering issues once I really got into a project in iMovie HD. Here is what I found, and how I fixed it:
I had dozens of short clips, sound files, and narration in the lower project bar, the area in which you make your linear project. My linear creation was about 40 minutes long. I had dozens more clips up in the clip storage area.
As has been noted many times, iMove HD starts to stutter the audio and skip about the video. Yet, as other posts noted you could export to Qicktime and have it pipe-out ok (mostly). I found the same was true if I exported what was in my project bar back to my DV camera: While the video and audio skipped and stuttered on my G5, it was coming across smooth in my camera screen...for about ten minutes. Then the video began skipping in my camera too.
My next intended workaround found an interesting problem with iMovie. My intended workaround was to delete the first ten minutes (that I'd gotten on my camera in nice form) from the project bar, and then simply record the next ten minutes or so in good fashion, and so on. But, with the first ten minutes gone, the export now lasted a good twenty minutes without beginning the skipping in my camera.
Ah-hah. iMovie must have a problem holding a lot of data!
So, I deleted all unused clips from my storage area, and tried the whole export again. This time it ran flawlessly to the end. I now had two perfect pieces of a movie (video, narration, music, sound effects) in my dv camera.
This tells me that iMovie has a problem holding a lot of separate data while trying to play video and audio.
I imported my two pieces of finished video that were on my camera into a new iMovie project, so that now I only had two big clips. iMovie handled these two clips flawlessly. I made some minor adjustments, put the pieces nicely together in the project linear project pain, and ran iDVD. It all went fine.
In the end, iMovie just could not handle so many pieces of video and sound.
Interesting.
G5 Duel 1.8   Mac OS X (10.4.5)   1 gig RAM

Answer 1

Do you think it's memory? Tried to "shrink to fit TV" a 3:45 min. iPhoto slideshow using a complicated procedure listed in MACWORLD, only to find the transitions jerking around. Only have 256MB memory so guess I have to install more RAM...
I too had experienced stuttering issues once I really
got into a project in iMovie HD. Here is what I
found, and how I fixed it:
I had dozens of short clips, sound files, and
narration in the lower project bar, the area in which
you make your linear project. My linear creation was
about 40 minutes long. I had dozens more clips up in
the clip storage area.
As has been noted many times, iMove HD starts to
stutter the audio and skip about the video. Yet, as
other posts noted you could export to Qicktime and
have it pipe-out ok (mostly). I found the same was
true if I exported what was in my project bar back to
my DV camera: While the video and audio skipped and
stuttered on my G5, it was coming across smooth in my
camera screen...for about ten minutes. Then the
video began skipping in my camera too.
My next intended workaround found an interesting
problem with iMovie. My intended workaround was to
delete the first ten minutes (that I'd gotten on my
camera in nice form) from the project bar, and then
simply record the next ten minutes or so in good
fashion, and so on. But, with the first ten minutes
gone, the export now lasted a good twenty minutes
without beginning the skipping in my camera.
Ah-hah. iMovie must have a problem holding a lot of
data!
So, I deleted all unused clips from my storage area,
and tried the whole export again. This time it ran
flawlessly to the end. I now had two perfect pieces
of a movie (video, narration, music, sound effects)
in my dv camera.
This tells me that iMovie has a problem holding a lot
of separate data while trying to play video and
audio.
I imported my two pieces of finished video that were
on my camera into a new iMovie project, so that now I
only had two big clips. iMovie handled these two
clips flawlessly. I made some minor adjustments, put
the pieces nicely together in the project linear
project pain, and ran iDVD. It all went fine.
In the end, iMovie just could not handle so many
pieces of video and sound.
Interesting.
G5 Duel 1.8   Mac
OS X (10.4.5)   1 gig RAM
iMac G5   Mac OS X (10.4.4)